COVID-19 impact: Niti Aayog may pitch for short-duration R&D projects

Niti Aayog is preparing to come out with recommendations to transform research and development in the country to focus on short-duration projects to address immediate challenges and give quick results, its member V K Saraswat said on Sunday.

The former Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief said consultations are on with scientists and

scientific institutions in this regard. "We are basically now looking for how to transform the R & D to meet the challenges. We are coming out with some suggestions that, for example, time has come that we will have to take on short-duration projects on mission mode and deliver in shortest possible time," Saraswat told PTI.

"This is the kind of strategy we have to evolve for research and development, we can't take long duration projects which are going to extend over a period of 4-5 years and give results, " the former Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister said.

The need of the hour was to solve the immediate problems and R&D should concentrate on short-duration, quick results projects, and deliver to industries for productionisation, he added.

Saraswat said R & D should be all 'pervasive'. "It has to be in private institutions, it has to be in public institutions, public-private partnership mode, and collaborative. Boundary between private, public, national laboratories, academic institutions should completely become impervious. There should be full-flow and collaboration," he said.

We should not work in silos, we should work together, Saraswat said, adding, in the last one-and-half months it has been amply demonstrated that institutions, labs and academia have worked together and come up with solutions in a fast mode to meet the challenges posed by COVID-19.

(Photo Credit: PTI)